On the journey

Discourse of the Animals: Tortoise

Thanks to The Travelling Cat Lady, at leavingfootprints.net for the photoSlowly
so slowly
you realised
I was here,
at the base
upholding
you all.

My vaulted
carapace
carrying all things,
and legs
buttressing
the weight
to the good earth.

And I am slow…
well,
you think me slow,
better to say,
‘I am’.
That’s it,
this is me.
No hurry,
ever.
Here to remind you
of a different
scale,
aeons.

Let things
unfold.
Watch
and wait.

As old as the mountains
I am as old as the mountains; my shell the lithos that lifted up in heat and pressure. I am ancient of days. I am solid, sturdy, carrying all things on my back. My wrinkles, the lines of immemorial time etched on my skin. My time is time out of mind; my ways those from the mist before time. It has been; it will be again. I know. I am the root, the unconscious rhizome, the fossil of the past you carry within yourself.